Instagram Sees Strong Ad Recall Rates

For better or worse, consumers seem to be remembering the ads they encounter on Instagram at a remarkable rate. In fact, according to fresh analysis of Nielsen Brand Effect data, the social network is seeing average ad-recall rates of 18 points -- 2.8 times higher than Nielsen norms for online advertising. 

The numbers were gleaned from around 700 of Instagram’s more popular ad campaigns from September to November of this year.

Among other happy brands, Sony Pictures was recently able to reach 23% more people in its target segment -- those who might have an interest in the new thriller "The Perfect Guy" -- by adding Instagram to the existing Facebook placements.

Considering its mostly African-American cast, Sony targeted the African-American affinity segment on Instagram.

Sony Pictures’ creative team also produced a video cut specifically for the Instagram platform in the square aspect ratio, and is now considering using this type of creative on both Facebook and Instagram in order to improve the ease of executing across both platforms.

Instagram only recently began offering more sophisticated targeting capabilities to advertisers. This summer, its ad technology finally started leveraging Facebook’s ads infrastructure -- something brands had long asked for.

The network is also testing new ad formats that achieve difference objectives, from Web site clicks to mobile app installs. Most notably, Instagram recently began letting brands serve video ads of up to 30 seconds in length.

 As such, Instagram is assuming an ever larger share of Facebook’s total ad revenue. The network’s global mobile ad revenues will reach $2.81 billion -- or about 10% of Facebook's global ad revenues -- by 2017, according to a recent eMarketer forecast.

If accurate, Instagram will then have higher net mobile display ad revenues than both Google and Twitter. This year alone, Instagram will rack up $595 million in mobile ad revenue around the globe, eMarketer expects.

Marketers clearly appreciate the offerings. This year, 32.3% of U.S. companies with 100 employees or more will use Instagram for marketing activities, according to recent findings from eMarketer.

That number will jump to 48.8% in 2016, and, by 2017, increase to 70.7% of U.S. companies, eMarketer predicts. Instagram will then overtake Twitter for the first time in terms of popularity among marketers, if the forecast holds out.

2 comments about "Instagram Sees Strong Ad Recall Rates".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, December 21, 2015 at 9:17 a.m.

    Gavin, this is interesting, however it would help if Nielsen supplied its actual normative recall scores for online ads as a basis for comparison. I've seen reports indicating that the average online ad  recall score, per Nielsen, is quite low---around 5-6%---but I'd like to see some confirmation. If that is, indeed, the norm, it places Instagram's performance in better perspective and also provides a base of comparison with TV , where, I believe, Nielsen's per commercial  recall average is somewhere between 35-45%.

  2. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, December 21, 2015 at 9:21 a.m.

    To ammend my comment, above, what I actually meant was not the overage online ad norn but the norms for ads similar to those presented on Instagram in this analysis. As the article noted, the typical online ad norm is, in fact, around 5-6%, but do the kinds of ads making up this norm, match those in the Instagram study? Just curious.

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